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How Else Do You Think We’ll Get to Star Trek?

Aviv — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 03:06:46 +0000

Forget everything you’ve heard about the iPad. Put aside all the caveats and seemingly major flaws that people are floating around, and think about what Apple’s really doing here. If you don’t quite get it, don’t worry, it’ll eventually click.

A tablet computer, a beefed up iPhone, a touch screen slate, the iPad, whatever you call it, this device’s magnitude won’t be entirely realized for a few years to come. The ambition behind this single device is huge. What Apple’s trying to do here is momentous, it’s unmatched and whether you like it or not, it’s going to change the way you compute.

When you watch movies like Star Trek or recent phenomenons like Avatar, you see conceptually magnificent user interfaces. You see rich and robust screens and characters interacting with them in ways we could only dream of. With the swipe of a finger, the flick of a wrist, or some motion in your arms, you have the power of a fully embraced suite of technologies. This is conceptual immersive computing that we have never experienced as a species, let alone something we can begin to understand, comprehend or imagine being worked into our daily lives.

It’s no secret that Steve Jobs loves Star Trek. When asked about the future of computer input on stage at the All Things Digital conference in 2007, Jobs responded with, “Ya know, just give me Star Trek.” He was talking about the way the characters interacted so fluidly with the technology around them. The way that technology interfaces and responds elegantly with the people controlling it. Computers are depicted as natural elements, organic structures baked into the core of any room or ship. Quite the opposite from the desk, mouse, keyboard and monitor combinations we currently use.

If you don’t think Apple is trying to make Star Trek or Avatar style computing a reality, then you haven’t fully grasped what the iPad brings with it.

Let’s get one thing straight. As it currently stands, only one company has the potential to invent, deliver and actually execute these high-level, infinitely complex scenarios. No other company on earth has multi-touch technology like Apple’s, let alone the ability to combine that software with highly optimized hardware and now custom silicon. This is the trifecta of the future.

The iPad is Apple’s first attempt at bringing this technology outside of a handheld device and into general computing. We’re talking about extremely powerful gestures, motions and finger swipes to accomplish tasks that had previously only been done through the combination of a keyboard and a mouse.

Just like the old saying goes, “You can’t build Rome in a day.” For Apple, the iPad is the first brick in this Star Trek-like Colosseum of technology. Imagine the iPhone as the gravel, and now you’re beginning to grasp how monumental this device is. We still have a very long way to go, but this is the foundation. It can’t be rushed, it can’t be hurried and you can bet Apple is going to make billions of dollars while increasing the company’s bottom line along the way.

A completely immersive computing experience. As conceptually realized by James Cameron in the film Avatar.

It’s impossible to go from where we are today, to a fully immersive world of touch-screen technology. The general public would be lost, and the most technically savvy computer users would feel alienated by such a rapid change in computing. It would never happen, it can’t happen, and if it did, it would be by one of Apple’s competitors as a rush to beat the competition. However, Apple knows that this is extremely valuable. It’s the holy grail of computing as far as we can see it today. This absolutely cannot turn into Windows Mobile. For all the proprietary downfalls that the company brings with it, the way they get behind open standards (banning flash from nearly everything they do), should come as a relief to the general public. For the people that actual develop applications and pieces of software for our computing platforms, open standards are a way of life. We live and die by them. If Apple wasn’t the largest player in the paradigm shift to touch computing, I’d feel a bit nervous, anxious and kind of unsettled to not know what’s coming. With Apple, we know we’re in good hands. They value healthy competition, and it’ll be done right.

To the nay-sayers, give it some time. Just pretend this is the first iPhone and keep whining about copy-and-paste.

MacBlogz Is With CoCo!

Aviv — Sat, 16 Jan 2010 01:40:13 +0000

MacBlogz stands behind Conan O’Brien. Show your support for the movement and artist Mike Mitchell by purchasing an original I’m With CoCo t-shirt or print. Read more about the I’m With CoCo movement here and here.

Ditching the iPhone? I’ll Bet WinMo Has What You Want

Aviv — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 18:15:42 +0000

As of late, we have three prominent names publicly ditching the iPhone. Om Malik, from GigaOm, Michael Arrington from TechCrunch, and one person who’s inspired me for ages, macintosh developer Steven Frank from Panic, inc. here in Portland, Oregon. While I have no qualms with their decisions to ditch the iPhone, I’m having a tough time understanding what the hell they’re talking about.

The iPhone is a big deal… Period. It radically changed the entire mobile industry. Since its launch in 2007, Apple has clobbered sales records and the iPhone revenue bomb continues to explode. This single piece of technology and the services around it, including the thriving developer community, close the gap even further between human nature and technology. The vision that good technology should be indistinguishable from magic has clearly shown through with the iPhone. In fact, it’s so intuitive, so easy to use, and so powerful, that when people consider leaving the device due to whatever reason(s), they second guess themselves so much, that they ultimately settle on announcing a personal ban against Apple and AT&T. And you know as they hit that “Publish” button, they regretted it.

Why not just jailbreak the device? Does the need for one app make you ignore the years of work that have gone into this thing? Without the iPhone, you wouldn’t even have a second, comparable device to switch over to! So perhaps you’re bored with it? Perhaps the arrangement of icons on the homescreen is driving you nuts? The dropped calls, poor reception, constant ludicrous prices… Perhaps you hate AT&T with a passion! I do too! And still, NONE of these reasons are good enough to even consider ditching the iPhone.

Some of you may swear this off as just another Apple freak gushing about his toy… So if that’s the way you take this, just stop reading. But for those that can actually sit down and relate with what Apple has done time and time again, and what they’ve publicly said (time and time again), you’ll see that these public denouncements of the iPhone, and these “I’ll pay $175 to leave AT&T” are just people with personal gripes, a large audience, and a little too much time on their hands.

When Apple released the iPhone they were all singing a different tune. They were willingly hopping on the Apple train, ditching Verizon, t-mobile and everything in between to snatch up iPhones. Even though everyone knew how incredibly shitty ~~Cingular’s~~ AT&T’s service was before the iPhone was even released. Through a little bit of common sense, anyone would know that the network would only degrade as millions of content heavy devices were sold to everyone you know. And now with the App Store, Apple has said time and time again that it’s their store and they’ll do what they want with it.

The problem with these public outcries, is that maybe the tiniest sliver of people who Apple actually gives a shit about reads these articles. You think the millions of people around the world buying iPhones know who Michael Arrington is? Or Om Malik? I don’t think so. Apple doesn’t care who does and doesn’t use an iPhone. All they care about is the masses seeing Alec Baldwin hold it up in 30Rock. You think Google Voice is such a big deal that you would leave the iPhone for it? I personally know people who use Google Voice, and it’s not a walk in the park. In a nutshell, if you love Linux and searching for the proper drivers for hours, then you’ll love Google Voice! And the explanation Michael Arrington has outlined for porting your phone number, is akin to calling up an outsourced ISP and setting up managed hosting… A fucking nightmare.

There have been no good reasons as of yet to ditch the iPhone… Perhaps if you were on a call with the president, talking about Iran’s nuclear initiatives and the call dropped, that would make sense. But none of these people’s calls are so important that they can’t communicate via SMS. They’re all on twitter, they’re used to it! One app? A few dropped calls? Poor reception? To leave the single greatest technological advancement in our time since the macintosh? What it is… Is sad.

Whether you love or hate Apple or AT&T, the iPhone is absolutely hands down the best mobile device in the world. Yes, it sucks that we have to deal with bullshit surrounding our service, reception and now the app store, but as long as ANY mobile carriers are involved, it will never change.

For fucks sake, if you have such monumental issues with the thing…. jailbreak it… It’s not that hard.

iPhone 3GS: Some Pit-falls Revolving Search, Photos and Videos

Aviv — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 23:43:28 +0000

I’ve had roughly 7 hands on hours with the iPhone 3GS. While the device performs entirely like a newer, faster, more powerful iPhone, a few pit-falls regarding searching and tagging leave me a tad confused.

Undoubtedly, the video recording feature is absolutely phenomenal. I’ve already been recording everything around me for the fun of it, and within a few hours, I managed to capture roughly 20 different videos. Alongside this, with the new auto-focus photography feature I found myself taking more pictures. Situations where images would’ve shown up blurry or dark in the past, now have been given a nice enhancement, which inevitably increases my confidence in the iPhone’s camera, which means more photos.

But after a few hours, my photo and video library is full, and finding a specific video or photo couldn’t be more of a time suck. I have to basically choose between a list of different thumbnails. Why do I still need to do things this way when Apple’s baked in Spotlight Search into the OS? Why can’t I flick my homescreen to the right and search for my videos based on a title or a few tags I’ve given them? At that rate, why can’t I title and tag my videos or photos? With 16 and 32GB flavors of the new iPhone, we’re talking mountains more memory than competing devices. Yes, we know it’s an iPod too, but we can actually search for music in that iPod much in the same way we should be able to search for photos and videos.

Search is an absolutely phenomenal thing to focus an OS around. If done right, everything, at anytime, from anywhere inside the OS, can be found by typing in the desired result. But it doesn’t work if things aren’t indexed, like the iPhone’s photos and videos.

As an iPhone owner, I’d like to be able to give my photos and videos a title, description and some tags. Obviously, this could be worked into the entire user experience in a very elegant way, and would be entirely optional for the end user. However, as the memory in my device increases, so will the amount of media on it, and so will the need for me to alter, edit, include and omit things from my search results.

In a nutshell, Apple, if you’re going to give us Search, don’t half-ass it, let us tag and label our media so that we can find it. And in the meantime, if Apple doesn’t respond, or care, maybe an iPhone developer wants to whip up a solution for organizing your photos and videos, then making them available in search. I’d buy the a copy for me and all my friends.

Palm Pre Overhyped, and Why Roger McNamee Shouldn’t Speak In Public

Aviv — Thu, 28 May 2009 23:52:36 +0000

Currently burning through huge cash infusions from Venture Capital firm Elevation Partners, Palm has moved all their chips, their rolex and mortgage to the center of the table with the Pre.

In a matter of days Palm will be releasing the most overhyped device since the original iPhone. They’re calling it the Pre, which takes its name from the way it supposedly thinks and acts a few steps ahead of its owner. In essence, attempting to help consumers find solutions and information before they know what they need. I’ve got some strong opinions about the Pre, and for the sake of competition in the marketplace, I hope it’s not just hype. But sadly, the closer we get to launch, the more I’m realizing it’s just another plasticky iPhone competitor without a thriving developer community, no App Store and no proprietary competition to iTunes.

The video below is of ex-Apple executive, now Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein and Venture Capitalist (Elevation Partners) Roger McNamee hyping up the Pre even more at this week’s All Things Digital conference. You’d think with all the massive media outlets hyping up the Pre so much, Rubinstein and McNamee would try toning it down a bit. But they are definitely not trying to calm things down. Instead, they’re layering the hype with thick coats of redundant points about the mobile space, that Apple CEO Steve Jobs made us aware of two years ago.

Palm CEO Jon Rubinstein and Elevation Partners Co-founder Roger McNamee

With every piece of high technology, game-changing hardware or innovative software that’s announced to the masses, several coats of hype are applied before an official release date is even set. For most companies and products, this is what causes their inevitable demise. The inability to live up to the expectations set out by their own people, which in turn leaves consumers disappointed and downright angry.

We can all agree that in the last few years, the iPhone stands out as the only piece of mobile hardware to induce a puddle of drool from everyone who’s ever used one. Those who clamor against the iPhone, for whatever reasons, have already had their mobile fantasies fulfilled (Blackberry owners, email power-users), but for the vast majority of consumers, the iPhone came along and truly delivered the best and most intuitive user experience on the market. In fact, the software (iPhone OS) leaves the hardware lagging behind most of the time. With iPhone 3.0 Apple is hoping to change that, and all the rumors happen to be pointing in the right direction.

At the risk of sounding too negative, my honest opinion is that the Palm Pre will massively disappoint. The lack of dedicated Palm developed desktop software leaves the company open and vulnerable to being shut out by those they depend on to make the device sync with your media. Very early reports play as a constant reminder that a built-in QWERTY keyboard is not so enticing. Additionally, how does Palm expect potential iPhone switchers (which they are counting on) to adjust to the lack of dedicated killer apps that they have grown accustomed to using on a daily basis (twitter clients and Google iPhone offerings mainly). Not to mention the elephant in the room… Gaming.

Palm is facing a steep uphill battle. One that may very well turn out littered with lawsuits and legal troubles stemming not only from Apple, but other patent holders in the mobile industry. Yes, Palm has some very old patents in the books, and in court, some may hold up. But unless Apple’s legal team takes a drastic turn, Palm may not even be able to afford the legal fees associated with taking on a company that has $30 billion (debt free) in the bank.

Some Facts:

• For the 13 weeks ending 2009-02-28, Palm’s net profit was -95 million
• Palm is burning close to $1 million a day
• “Palm shares closed Thursday up 93 cents, or 8.8%, to $11.46 and are unchanged in recent late trading” (WSJ)
• The Pre syncs with iTunes, which leaves it completely vulnerable to being shut-out by Apple
• Apple is closely watching Palm and will aggressively defend its intellectual property through legal outlets
• Palm’s stock is currently surging on rumors that the device is headed to Verizon
• ” Instead of creating an entirely new trunk Palm is branching off of the established phone environments.” (John Biggs over at CrunchGear)

The Palm Pre: Hope or Hype?

Aviv — Tue, 05 May 2009 01:02:32 +0000

Let’s cut around the hype and get to the point. I’m hounding the release of the Palm Pre the same way I hounded the iPhone from January 2007 until that historic day in June. Maybe not with the same passion and intensity, but I’m definitely checking in on a daily basis to see what’s going on in with the Palm Pre. When this product drops, it better be worth the hype.

Back in January, when Palm first revealed the Pre to the masses, I said that Apple should take notice of the device, especially since the entire project was being spearheaded by ex-Apple handyman Jon Rubinstein.

Let’s face it, this is Palm’s last chance. The company is pretty much dead in the water and if the Pre doesn’t live up to all the hype surrounding webOS, it will be a major disappointment. Not only for Palm’s wacky investors, but for consumers and the mobile industry in general. At the moment, Apple’s iPhone has absolutely no competition, and with the Pre, Palm is hoping that will change, and so am I.

When patent lawsuit rumors were getting heated between Apple and Palm, I wrote the following, “Instead of lawsuits, we’d like to see this settled with the separation of proprietary technology. But for that to happen, Palm needs to reveal how its multi-touch interface and operating system function. If that technology impedes on Apple’s patents, Palm might need a plan B.” This coupled with the rest of the obstacles standing squarely in Palm’s way don’t make for a very positive outlook.

If the mobile industry keeps chugging along without any real competition, Apple will be able to take its sweet time releasing software and hardware upgrades, not to mention giving the users core features like copy-and-paste, which is coming in iPhone OS 3.0… finally. But even if Palm has enough mojo to make Apple reconsider, or rethink their software/hardware releases, there’s one thing Palm simply won’t be able to compete with. A little neighborhood shop they call the App Store, which just demolished the 1 billion downloads milestone.

The Palm Pre has an incredibly steep hill to climb. And along the way things will only get worse for both Palm, and Sprint. Which is sad considering the extremely poor state both companies are currently in. Palm’s investors simply won’t be able to keep floating the company hundreds of millions of dollars. And when getting into complex mobile innovation, we’re talking about billions spent in research and development, emulating network environments and stress testing against millions of users. There’s just no way for them to compete against Apple, who at this point has around $30 billion debt free and growing.

Assuming people actually buy the Palm Pre, begin loving it, developers leave the iPhone platform and flock to Palm’s Mojo SDK framework, and Palm gets through the undeniable bugs, mobile carrier pitfalls, and gross outcry from consumers about whatever issues the masses choose, they still have to compete with Apple. Who, as CEO Steve Jobs put it, “is at least 5 years ahead of the curve.” However, when compared to Palm, Apple seems more like 10 or 15 years ahead of the curve. And putting Apple in an even better situation, the Palm Pre is the iPhone’s only real competition for the foreseeable future.

Leaked Photo of NEXT-Generation iPod Shuffle

Aviv — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 23:17:56 +0000

Even though Apple has recently released released a new iPod Shuffle, our sources were able to get their hands on a leaked photo of the NEXT generation iPod Shuffle. It’s even smaller, invisible and only works with these obscure Japanese headphones that nobody can find.

The new shuffle depicted in the leaked photo below, has wireless syncing built right in.

Macbook Air Hinge Failures Not Covered by Apple’s Warranty (VIDEO)

Aviv — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 23:09:56 +0000

A large number of first generation Macbook Air owners are claiming that the hinges on their notebooks are failing. Unfortunately, early responses from Apple claim these issues are not covered under the company’s warranty.

The issues seem fairly widespread with Macbook Air owners explaining what is going wrong both in Apple’s Discussion Threads, as well as the MacRumors forums.

Image via flickr user landung2008

“I have recently noticed my 3 month old MacBook Air has 1/2″ to 1″ “play” or “slop” in the hinge. In other words, the screen will move 1/2″ to 1″ with little or no resistance. The hinge does not seem to have any adjustment or an easily fixed remedy,” one frustrated owner explains on the MacRumors forums. “…my apple air has a defect with the hinge. could apple please change your policy to accept hinge as warrant on apple air models,” another owner explains in Apple’s threads.

Both videos shown here address the issues, which Apple says are not covered under warranty. This makes for an unfortunate situation given Apple and CEO Steve Jobs’ level of pride when unveiling “the skinniest notebook in the world.” The level of attention to detail Apple claimed went into the notebook’s hardware design and manufacturing was staggering. They painted a picture of the Macbook Air as if it were chiseled by da Vinci himself. Now that the issue seems moderately spread, we’re curious to see how Apple responds, if at all.

Safari 4: Three Steps Forward, One Step Back

Aviv — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:03:56 +0000

With the new Safari 4 release, Apple aims to increase its web browser market share while innovating new features and cool new enhancements to what it calls “the fastest browser on the planet.” Indeed the new browser is speedy, but with every step forward Apple takes towards open-standards and accelerating its javascript engine, the more it misses out on global market share with a need for a plugin directory.

If you missed the opening animation that Safari 4 played when you first opened the new beta, most of it was done with HTML 5 and CSS 3 web standards. Apple has always been on the forefront when it comes to pushing for open web standards. Mobile Me and iWork.com both use a heavy dose of Ajax, coupled with frameworks like Sproutcore and high level data-interchange formats such as JSON. As Adobe spends its time fruitlessly developing and trying to further the necessity of Flash, Apple seems to shun the idea altogether. Out of all the platforms and all the web browsers available today, Flash arguably performs the worst in Safari on Mac OS X. With Safari 4, Apple has once again made it clear that open standards are where their intentions lie, and the necessity of Flash remains solely in the ubiquity of its video format, which Apple seems poised to take over as well with its own H.264 format.

Safari 4 brings in a host of new features and visual enhancements. The Top Sites feature was ripped straight from Google Chrome in which a user can see his most visited sites “at-a-glance” – and the same goes for the new “tabs on top” feature in which users can tear off tabs into new pages, or click the “+” sign to open up a new tab, which conveniently displays your “top sites.”

Cover Flow is a new addition to Safari which lets users navigate their site history through a visual slideshow of images. As Apple puts it, “Cover Flow offers a highly visual way of reviewing your site history and bookmarked sites, presenting full-page previews of the websites that look exactly as they did when you last visited them.” Even though this feature is nice and provides some slick eye candy, it’s not very useful, and barely performs on Windows machines with the new Safari 4 running, at least not fast enough to be enjoyable. It seems that even though the addition of Cover Flow was most likely cakewalk for Safari’s developers, the resources could have been spent on more important additions to the browser. Like the diversification of plugins available that can extend Safari’s usefulness.

Safari is built upon Apple’s WebKit browser engine, and at this point it’s safe to say that Apple’s javascript engine (newly renamed to Nitro instead of SquirrelFish) is the fastest around. As Apple claims in the Press Release, Safari is the “first browser to support advanced CSS Effects that enable highly polished web graphics using reflections, gradients and precision masks. Safari 4 is the first browser to pass the Web Standards Project’s Acid3 test, which examines how well a browser adheres to CSS, JavaScript, XML and SVG web standards that are specifically designed for dynamic web applications.” And in terms of speed, Safari blows away Firefox on OS X. The sheer snappiness and accelerated load times remain the sole reason we religiously use both Firefox and Safari together.

Overall, Safari 4 is a good step forward on the visual side of things, and the newly crowned “Nitro” javascript engine is incredibly speedy. But the lack of extendible plugins and cross-platform stability make it a bit too shaky for most to use as a primary browser, even if were not in beta. Additionally, the developer plugin Firebug remains a daily necessity for us, so it looks like while Safari got a little bit faster, sadly we still have to use both.

Apple Tablet: Marc Andreessen and Charlie Rose Think It’s Inevitable (VIDEO)

Aviv — Sun, 22 Feb 2009 21:33:09 +0000

During an incredibly interesting interview between Charlie Rose and serial entrepreneur Marc Andreessen, both of them touch upon the subject of a “scaled up” iPhone. Charlie Rose thinks it’s an inevitable idea, while Andreessen explains that he “would be the first to buy one.”

Specifically around the forty minute mark, the interview shifts towards Amazon’s business model and how the kindle contributes to its growth. Both Rose and Andreessen feel that the kindle is a giant leap in technology and undoubtedly generates a tremendous amount of success for Amazon. However, like the continuous elephant in the room, when competition from Apple is brought up in the form of a “scaled up iPhone” or 7″ touch tablet, Andreessen and Rose seem mesmerized by the topic.

For those that are not aware, Andreessen is the co-founder of Netscape and has successfully sold two companies for over $1 billion each. Aside from currently being the co-founder of social networking site Ning.com, he is also beginning to dabble in venture capital. The interview touches upon many interesting subjects going on today, as well as opinions on Facebook, Twitter, Google and more.